Mother Nature beckons us into the sun and we go skipping down the beach, gliding on the shimmering surfboard, sitting quietly on a high rock. Being in nature is almost timeless, magical — and then we get hungry. Picnics allow for a long day out of the house without spending extra cash on fast food. It’s all about preparing ahead while keeping it easy, healthy and quick. As you pack your picnic basket think about balancing these three food classes:

- Chlorophyll: green leafy vegetables such as lettuce, celery, parsley, kale and sprouts.

- Fats: avocados, olives, nuts, seeds, coconuts, unheated olive and seed oils.

- Sweet fruits: apples, peaches, pears, grapes and watermelon with seeds.

Notice that animal flesh and dairy products are not recommended because of their dense, slow-metabolizing quality; they also decay quickly in the sun. Instead, highly nutritious organic plant-based food is encouraged.

Chlorophyll, also known as “liquid sunshine,” is the blood of plants; it keeps the entire planet alive and well, and it will revitalize you, too. The plants absorb and organize the sunlight; eating plant food transfers the vital sun energy directly to you, undiminished. Green leafy vegetables are overall the best source of iron and heal anemia; they alkalize your blood and boost immunity, while detoxifying the liver of heavy metals and pollution.

Get the summer glow — eat unheated plant fats for beauty. Raw plant fats optimize your brain function, lubricate your joints, make your skin and hair shine, and allow for a longer-lasting high energy level. Yes, you want them! The craze against fats applies mostly to cooked fats. When oil is heated it breaks down into a carcinogenic molecular structure that cannot be absorbed by the body, leading to weight gain. In contrast, eating avocados, olives, and fresh coconut flesh can help a person lose weight because these fats contain lipase enzymes, which allow body fat to be burned.

Sweet fruit is a summertime favorite; it is the optimal fuel for our sparkly brains and cognition. Choose fruits with seeds. Seedless fruits such as bananas, grapes, oranges and watermelon are bred for certain genetics and thus are hybrid foods that confuse the body’s metabolic process. It’s important to eat this quickly-digestible fruit alone or before the denser slowly-digestible foods such as nuts, breads, and animal products to avoid gas, bloating and constipation.

“Better than a Sandwich” Picnic Wraps

1 bunch romaine lettuce, 1 avocado, 1 tomato

1 cucumber, 1 box of sprouts, tamari or soy sauce

Layer sliced veggies on a romaine leaf topped with sprouts, drizzled with tamari sauce. Roll it up. Breathe and bite in!

Also enjoy this educational article at http://coastviewsmag.com/easy-healthy-picnic-foods

Are you sick of being sick? Have you been relying too much on medicines and drugs to cure whatever ails you? In 300 B.C. the Greek doctor Hippocrates, considered to be the founder of modern medicine, said the famous words, “Let FOOD be thy medicine”. In 2007, hundreds of health specialist gathered at the “Extreme Health” seminar in Los Angeles, CA. and at the end of the day it was agreed that, yes, 80% of human well-being -physically, psychologically, and spiritually- depends on the food we eat. Are you interested to find out how food can help you?

For a comprehensive understanding, lets look at both sides of the coin of food as medicine: first, how nutritionally, food alone may not be enough to maintain your health and second, how food offers a missing link even the most expensive nutritional supplement can never dream about.

There is a debate that in today’s polluted environment the nutritional value of food is much lower than it was at the time of Hippocrates. The soil is too depleted some say, after all minerals come from the soil and not the plants. And if in the past, one could eat just a few carrots to get the Recommended Daily Value of Vitamin A, today one would have to eat a train wagon worth of carrots. Thus is the rise of vitamin and mineral supplements – a train wagon worth of carrots in a tiny pill.

“There are about 60 nutrients known at this time to be essensial to human nutrition,” says Donna Gates, the author of The Body Ecology Diet, “Yet even if you swallowed a mega-vitamin/mineral pill consisting of generous quantities of all these nutrients, you could not maintain your health.” And this is because the whole foods contain elements (spiritual essences) essential to our health that modern medicine/science has not yet identified. Our arrogance leads us to believe we can duplicate the intricate relationships among these components that nature provides.

Direct contact with Nature

“The benefits which man can enjoy once he creates informational contact with a small space of Nature are much greater than just [nutritional] help in the struggle against disease.” ~ Anastasia

In the series of books by Vladimir Megre The Ringing Cedars of Russia Anastasia shares most fascinating insights into the nature of Man’s existence on Earth; Man and Earth being two living organisms in a co-creative relationship.

Anastasia states that “Every seed a Man plants contains within itself an enormous amount of information about the Universe. Nothing made by human hands can compare with this information either in size or accuracy. Through the help of these data the seed knows the exact time, down to the millisecond, when it is to come alive, grow, what juices it is to take from the Earth how to make use of the rays of the celestial bodies – the Sun, Moon and stars, what it is to grow into, what fruit to bring forth. These fruits are designed to sustain Man’s life. More powerfully and effectively than any manufactured drugs of the present or future, these fruits are capable of counteracting and withstanding any disease of the human body. But to this end the seed must know about the human condition. So that during the maturation process it can satiate its fruit with the right correlation of substances to heal a specific individual of his disease, if indeed he has it or is prone to it.”

According to Anastasia the seed can be directly informed about the condition of a given Man as follows: right before planting, hold the seed under your tongue to code with the information from your saliva; then blow on it lightly, warming it with your breath, so it will know everything that is within you; then hold it out in your hand, presenting the seed to the celestial bodies, the planets will help it! Now informed, during its maturation process, the seed-fruit will pick up from the Universe and the Earth the optimum blend of energies needed specifically for you.

Also it is recommended to stand barefoot on the soil itself, right before planting the seed and during the maturation period, because through perspiration from one’s feet come substances (toxins, no doubt) containing information about bodily diseases. The information is taken up by the seedling. It transmits it to the fruit, which will thus be enabled to counteract diseases.

How fascinating these ideas are, don’t you think?
May these ideas be like seeds planted in your fertile mind. And at the first signs of Spring in your Heart, may these seeds blossom into fulfilling actions.